No it is not prejudice, it is a fact of life.

Well I suppose it depends on what you mean by "good". If you mean Paul Daniels or Jamy Ian Swiss good, then you'd probably be right. But I believe that some people have a natural ability with certain things.

I've been doing magic for 3 years and still don't think I'm ready...

good because 3 years is nothing. And have you been doing magic or performing at private events? Because if you havnt been performing your experience is still at 0 years.

I love how friendly magicians are.

Three years is nothing? If that was the case it would take a bloody long time to do anything.

Yes it does. It takes a long time to get used to performing in front of an audience. You can practice in front of a mirror until you have the moves perfect. Then you rehearse in front of a mirror until you have everything perfect. But then you go before an audience and the first couple of times it is perfect, until you finally get a heckler or somebody drops something or the server bumps into you and drops a plate full of food on your leg.

A performer has to handle things like this with finess and work it in as part of the act. And that takes experience.

I agree. But it's taking it a bit far by saying "3 years is nothing"...slightly over-dramatic.

Well let's see.

A doctor with three years experience versus a doctor with 20 years performing your open heart surgery.

A lawyer with 3 years courtroom trial experience versus a lawyer with 20 years defending your murder accusation.

A teacher with 3 years experience versus a teacher with 20 years experience teaching your children.

A plumber with 3 years experience versus a plumber with 20 years experience fixing your broken pipes.

An auto mechanic with 3 years experience versus an auto mechanic with 20 years experience fixing your $50,000 BMW.

I could go on and on......

Now,

A magician with 3 years experience versus a magician with 20 years experience entertaining your birthday child or performing at your corporate event.

Remember, when I say "experience" I mean actually doing that particular job. Who would you trust MORE, given the choice?

Whoever had the most experience, of course. But notice that I didn't say anything about three years being better than twenty.

The only way to get experience is to experience the reality of the show... one can sit back and listen to and agree with the advice given til dooms day, but without ever putting what has been taught into practice, there will be no experience.

Those with 20 yrs experience were able start with that amount of experience? I think they too had to start from 0 exp up to 1, 2, then 3 yrs, etc. If nobody ever gave them a chance or were condescending about the amount of experience level they were at, do you think they would have ever managed to get up to the lvl of experience that they have achieved?

Nobody ever "gave" me a chance. I made my own chances. I practiced and rehearsed an effect so many times that I couldn't screw it up. Then I went out an gave a free night as an audition so I could back up what I told the managers. After that freebie the people told the manager how much better I had made their time at the restaurant.

That's how you get started, be an entertainer that people enjoy watching, be better than your competitors before you go for that first job. This business is not like being an employee where you get an apprentice job until you learn to do the job that master craftsmen do. You start by being a master craftsman and then get better.

Audition: 1. a trial hearing given to a singer, actor, or other performer to test suitability for employment, professional training or competition, etc.

I am not disagreeing with you Paddy and I do respect what you have to share. Though I do see way too much of a discouragement (and I know I have done the same) towards the younger and less experienced magicians that ask questions.

If you started performing only once you perfected all the moves, yet without the real world situations, you were only half way there. You cannot learn crowd control, how to handle the heckler, the breast feeding mother, etc. in front of the mirror. Things like that can only be learned from experiencing the situation. It is the interaction which allows learning ones personality and own limitations from actual working conditions.

Reading the how to and practicing the moves until they are perfected does not allow one to grow towards being an entertainer.

Saying that someone does not have enough experience to go out and perform and to wait until they are masters is not realistic. In order to get better, there has to be mistakes they encounter that hopefuly he/she should learn from. These situations cannot be learned from books, other performers, or from perfecting the moves.

Thank you, thank you this is my argument in most of the threads Paddy put his 2 cents into, we cannot learn most of these things without making mistakes, you don't learn from success but rather from failure.

-A:S

You are right about learning from failure and I have failed often enough myself. However, there are places to fail and learn besides restaurants.

Restaurant work puts us in the public eye big time and a failure here can affect your career and the careers of other magicians that try to get into the restaurant you screwed up in. There are other venues that I use to try out my new material before I ever use it in restaurants.

I do a lot of work in senior centers and nursing homes. That is where I put my new effects out to test. Senior centers pay is for crap! Because the budget in all of them is very low. In fact I charge the nursing homes and senior centers $50 for a half hour show. There I can try new things and if I screw up and get caught the people have a good laugh and think it's part of the show. Go to thayt venue before going to restaurants is all I am saying. Restaurants is NOT the place to learn.

Paddy

good points.

What would you rather have?

A hooker with 20 years , or a hooker with 60 years?